


The East Wind

by Adadzio



Series: Character/Relationship Studies [6]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Also Patchface Being Creepy, Angst, Character Study, F/F, F/M, Jealousy, Mentions of miscarriage, Misogyny, Multi, Religious Conflict, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-17
Updated: 2016-09-17
Packaged: 2018-08-11 01:05:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7869301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adadzio/pseuds/Adadzio
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All Selyse asks is a castle where she might chase the lights in the sky, and a gentle lord to call husband. But the east wind carries sharp along the Wall—and with it, another gust of ice, another cold whisper.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The East Wind

**Author's Note:**

> I've been having Selyse feels lately and wanted to explore her character a little more. I think she's much smarter and stronger than people give her credit for ~ she's certainly a sad character in many ways, and there's really no happy times for her, so this is pretty angsty (◕︿◕✿) I hope you enjoy it all the same!
> 
>  _This is essentially Selyse's extended POV from[The Longest Winter](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4595214), following ADWD more closely._  
>  xx

I.

They believe her haughty, or perhaps plain stupid.

They always have, from the time she was born, for daring to dream. Harmless dreams, they are. Selyse hopes for a simple life. She is a girl from the Reach, one who answers the call of the sun and stars. All she asks is a castle where she might still chase the lights in the sky, and a gentle lord to call husband. She fantasises of one day bearing him sons—healthy boys who won’t inherit her prominent ears. She dreams of being content the way she is.

 _The way she is,_ her Florent uncles scoff, _no man will marry such a plain thing_.

Her voice is strong and triumphant when she can say, “Now I am betrothed to the king’s brother, see?”

A few hear the news and treat her more graciously, from then on. Selyse is _not_ stupid. She knows they only mean to gain favour with her, now that she marries into a royal line. But even empty flattery is better than hurtful japes. 

The genuine ones only shake their heads to hear of her impending marriage to Stannis Baratheon.

 II.

It crumbles very quickly, her dream. It was the silly dream of a silly Florent girl, and her marriage bed is forever defiled. Robert has cursed it with his crude lust, Delena with the raven-haired boy she pushes from her thighs. Her lanky new husband says nothing, only grits his teeth until they begin to grind and crack.

What follows is no better. Despite their youth, neither can seem to muster any passion for the other. She wrinkles her nose up at his stern blue eyes, so deep and weary they seem bruises upon his face, and that grim, grim line of a mouth. He cannot hide his distaste of the ever-persistent hairs above her upper lip, or the fact that she is gaunt and sinewy as he, a warrior fresh off a year of starvation. Lord Stannis is all muscle and bone on a hulking frame, and she has no curves on her body to soften his. They spend most nights in their respective bedchambers. Whenever he drags himself to her bed, it is silent and hurried and painful, her mind filled with unwanted images of Delena moaning and writhing.

Dragonstone is cold and dark, and her husband offers little comfort when she bleeds out his children. Amidst their failure in years to come, Selyse weeps alone and wonders how the Bastard of Storm’s End can be at once so shameful and so maddeningly  _perfect_. She lifts this question up to the Seven. The saying of a prayer is a small happiness, as if a way to control her fate, even when the gods seem aloof or lazy.

Lord Stannis does not pray. He says he _will_ not pray to gods who struck his parents down before him. Another question comes to mind, but she does not disrespect the Seven by wondering aloud.

_By what cruel joke had she married a man more severe than she?_

 III.

When a child comes out pink and perfect and screaming, Selyse forgets all her sorrow, cries her thanks to the gods. It is a daughter, Maester Cressen says. Her heart sinks a little, but only a little. Shireen is an answered prayer. A promise of the son to come. Her absent husband will be pleased with any living child, with this little girl and her too-big ears.

Soon, though, their only child is held over the edge of death, and she can do nothing but wail and retch with grief. Stannis, as ever, shows no wild emotion. Perhaps it is impossible that he might become more austere, or perhaps he is simply too focused on dragging maesters and healers to their rotting island. Either way she is grateful for his dour determination when Shireen pulls through. The Greyscale spreads no further than her tiny, pale throat.

But the stubborn part of Selyse begrudges him. She is a woman, even if men don’t find her beautiful or charming. She is a faithful wife, a highborn lady whose right is comfort and affection. When finally she gathers the courage to tell her husband so, he says a marriage is built on duty, not comfort or affection.

 IV.

The Seven are fables. This is why sons never come; she has been sending empty words to empty gods, and a decade passes in the meantime. A priestess from Asshai tells her so, having appeared on Dragonstone's shores like a red Elenei. 

“Your words cannot be heard by deaf heavens. It is to the fire you must speak.” 

Suddenly everything seems to make sense. Selyse heeds the beautiful foreigner, throwing the last of her faith to the flames. She is rewarded with such hope, such warmth and _promise_ that she cannot wipe the smile from her face.

Stannis is introduced on one of his rare visits home, but R’hllor does not seem to excite him any more than the Seven, and he seems desperately uncomfortable around the priestess. Selyse pays this no mind. A true friend has come to her at last, and perhaps more.

With the arrival of Melisandre, life comes to a halt and moves forward all at once.

V.

Unrest brews in King’s Landing. A man rides through the gates of their castle like a madman, so soaking and worn that she thinks it might be the peasant-knight Davos. She is surprised when it is her own husband.  _Jon Arryn is dead_ , Stannis confides, a deep frown etched into his face. 

He seems to look at Melisandre differently now. Selyse has never seen him look in such a way at anything. When she points this out to him, voicing her thoughts in a teasing way, his back becomes very rigid.  _The priestess may be useful,_  he replies, and says nothing more on the subject. Soon thereafter his brother is killed, and Eddard Stark follows him in death. He agrees he must press his claim to the Iron Throne. 

 _The red comet,_  Selyse remembers. The bleeding comet fills her veins with feverish anticipation. Her words become insistent and zealous. Thus another title is layered atop _haughty_  and _barren_ , hovering over her head like a long-awaited explanation, the conclusion to her confounding story. _Fanatic_. Her words once held weight, at least, even if her face was ugly and her body frail. Now Selyse speaks and even her words are stripped of credibility, because she is a _fanatic_.

Melisandre believes much the same things; it is from Melisandre that she has come to know the Lord in the first place. But men are more willing to listen to her, Melisandre with her soft accent and full body and heart-shaped face, Melisandre with her red, red eyes. Selyse notices that even her cold husband does not pull away from Melisandre, and Selyse is not stupid. She thrusts the priestess in his path, seats her at his right hand during feasts, sacrifices her own place of high honour. She allows the priestess to whisper R'hllor's truth in his ear until she feels a stranger in her own castle, like she is intruding on something very intimate.

The following week she glimpses them walking arm in arm about the dark cliffs, and thanks her new god with tears in her eyes.  

VI. 

“I need the king’s seed,” Melisandre tells her.

 _The king?_ Selyse wonders for just a moment. _Oh—my lord husband._

The priestess has always been queer of speech, oblivious or perhaps uncaring of Westerosi customs and propriety. This does not make her words any less unsettling. When she presses forth, Melisandre explains it is needed for a holy kind of ritual. She seems so certain, as if there has never been something so obvious.

Fortunately for her, Selyse has never trusted someone so much. “I will speak with him,” she agrees. The young priestess smiles, and her heart feels warm and light and giddy. "Will you stay a while and pray with me?"

Their prayers are like fervent flames, growing brighter and more heated as the hours pass by. At some point their hands brush and tangle, as they often do, and Selyse's heart again skips a beat. These long nights stave off the loneliness whilst Stannis prepares to march through the Stormlands.

He announces he is taking Melisandre with him. Losing her company is a stabbing blow, but Selyse knows it must be done.

So they depart. Whispers drift back, dividing court into bitter factions. _It is sinful he keeps her in his tent of a night,_ some say. These are the stubborn men who cling to the Seven, the men who call themselves _king's men_. Others argue she inspires the king in a good way, and Selyse vigorously encourages them. _My loyal queen’s men_ , she praises. They hasten to adopt the red god, delighted with the favours that follow.

VII.

After the Blackwater, her husband is always with Melisandre, night and day. He sees no one but her, and the guards keep all others away, even Shireen. Selyse holds her close and assures her he is only resting from battle. But everyone wonders when he’ll emerge. _If_  he’ll emerge. “Who can say?” the castle whispers. “No one knows the king’s mind but the red woman.”

_What of me? What of his own wife?_

R'hllor would bless her with a son now, she's certain of it, yet Stannis has become as elusive as their priestess. Selyse comes across the servants collecting uneaten meals, whole plates and dishes untouched. They avoid her questions, but not before she glimpses pity in their eyes. Her voice turns sharp as she orders them away. The voice in her head carries less conviction. _What is it they do? What crucial work is this that should distract them so completely from the world?_

_Who is he to keep her away from me?_

During the day no sound comes from the Stone Drum. But at night her husband’s bed creaks through the walls, and Selyse imagines it is the crackling of the flames, speaking to her and her alone _._

 VIII.

An east wind carries sharp whispers along the Wall. _Lady Melisandre wears no crown_ , it says _, but everyone knows she is Stannis Baratheon’s real queen, not the homely woman he left to shiver at Eastwatch-by-the-Sea_. Another gust of ice, another cold whisper _. The queen’s men, too. The real queen they follow is the red one at Castle Black._

Is Melisandre no longer her priestess, but the king's _red shadow?_   Selyse refuses to doubt her. Doubt is the death of faith, and faith is the only thing worth living for. Melisandre has always been loyal and true; the queen has never been so certain of something in her life. 

Still, the whispers crawl atop one another, obscenities getting tangled up in Patchface’s morbid songs. _The crowned queen or the crownless, which is true? Which is true, oh, the old queen or new?_ Such begins to reach Shireen’s ears, and Selyse knows she must put an end to it while she still has a voice. 

Ser Axell is instructed to crush the whispers. He'd been one of the uncles who mocked her as a girl, though he was as ugly as she. Now the man is wary of the fate that befell Alester, and scrambles to keep favour with her. _Good._ She is a trueborn lady, the king's true wife, mother to the king's true heir. 

She will never again be a woman to mock.

IX. 

Stronger grows the east wind, such that Selyse can hardly talk over it when she arrives at Castle Black. The bastard Snow can barely muster the required pleasantries, either. “Well and good," she interrupts. "I wish to consult with the Lady Melisandre.”

“Of course, Your Grace. Her apartments are in the King’s Tower.”

 _And does she not think to greet her queen?_   Selyse wonders, feeling more than a little hurt. It is surely only the priestess being ignorant of custom, even after all these years. Still, she cannot help but wonder if Melisandre's soothing touch had ever been genuine, or if she’d been seeking something else all along.  

When Alys Karstark later jumps the fire with the savage Magnar, Selyse feels at ease once more. A northern maid and a wildling warrior bound together by R'hllor—such is enough to rekindle her soul. The Lord's flames warm her heart, seep into her brittle bones, kiss her cold, drawn cheeks in a way her husband never did. "Such a beautiful rite," she sighs. "How many times I have begged Stannis to let us be wed again, a true joining of body and spirit blessed by the Lord of Light. I know that I could give His Grace more children if we were bound in fire…"

 _To give him more children you would first need to get him into your bed,_ the wind whispers back. Never mind that her husband had already grown hostile at the suggestion _._

Selyse smiles in the face of such truths, pretending she does not hear. Melisandre, on the other hand, seems absent-minded as she stares into the flames, like she cannot be bothered with a wedding feast. “I must attend my fires, Your Grace. Perhaps R'hllor will vouchsafe me a glimpse of His Grace…” 

“Oh,” Selyse responds, feeling dejected again. Her moods seem to shift like the wind in this frozen wasteland. Perhaps meaning to torture herself, her eyes follow the priestess to her husband's former rooms. She is a flash of red behind the window, a flame both alluring and out of reach.

That night Selyse cannot sleep. Castle Black is no more comforting than Eastwatch had been, and for the first time in years she sees Delena arching and whimpering in the flames. The image torments her, even more so when Delena's hair turns fiery copper and her skin pale as milk, and Robert Baratheon becomes Stannis himself, clutching at soft curves as if laying claim upon her. 

She is not stupid. Deep down she knows her marriage bed will never be blessed by R'hllor, never be gifted with sons. How can it be, when her husband worships not the one true god, but his own priestess? Selyse has never known her husband's embrace; perhaps that is why she cannot comprehend how Melisandre might long for it now.

 X.

He called for the priestess first, she realises. The bastard commander naturally thought to share the Bolton letter with Melisandre, as if she should know it before Stannis's wife. She admits it is not truly Melisandre's fault. Axell hears her say, "Queen Selyse has the right of this;" a reassurance of loyalty. It feels a betrayal all the same. When Selyse finally speaks it aloud, _my husband shames me even in death,_ it weakens her still more. There is no friend to listen. Melisandre is gone from the room, and so are the queen’s men, leaving her with only the howling wind. 

 _Queen’s men,_ she thinks bitterly.  _The crowned or the crownless, which is true? Which is true?_ Patchface’s bells ring shrill in her mind, the answer so loud and obvious she must laugh until she cries. And R'hllor's promises to her—had those lies been clear all along, too? Did she truly believe her husband was a new Azor Ahai, or is that what she told herself so she could rise from bed each morning?

Selyse puts out the fire and looks instead to the stars, much as she did when she was a girl. Love had been a painful dream to bury. Faith was harder still. _There is no harmless dream_ , she decides. There was nothing good to ever come from her marriage, no single happiness that had not been dashed to pieces.

 _Shireen,_ the stars remind her. 

All at once the North is silent. No bells, no creaking bed, no wind, no laughter.  _Shireen,_  the stars whisper again.

"Shireen," she repeats slowly. Her sweet princess sleeps in her bed, unknowing and young and still full of dreams.  _You will seat my daughter on the Iron Throne,_   _or die in the attempt._

The night howls with grief once more, but Selyse does not, only follows a trail of stars in the sky. 


End file.
